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Dog Days – Movie Review

In the tradition of ensemble dramatic comedies including He’s Just Not That Into You (2009), Valentine’s Day (2010), and New Year’s Eve (2011), this new film focuses on the dog days of late summer when the lives of attractive Los Angeles residents with shiny white teeth interconnect through their adorably quirky dogs.

The stories include a Gertrude-Stein obsessed barista named Tara (Vanessa Hudgens) who lusts after a handsome veterinarian (Ryan Hansen), but fails to notice a daily customer (Jon Bass) who’s fallen in love with her. When Tara finds a tiny chihuahua hiding behind the coffee shop, she learns that the vet is more fascinated with himself than with animals, and her coffee customer conveniently runs an animal adoption business.

Interconnected Stories

Tara lives in a no-pets-allowed apartment building, which explains why she can’t adopt the dog and turns little “Gertrude” over to the animal adoption business. Her crazy musician neighbor, Dax (Adam Pally), sneaks in a huge canine that he’s watching for his sister, who’s pregnant with twins. Dax’s experiences with the slobbering, ill-mannered mutt are among the funniest in the movie.

There’s also Elizabeth (Nina Dobrev), a television anchorwoman who visits a dog therapist (Tig Nataro) to help herself get past a bad breakup. There’s turmoil on the television set, as well, when a former athlete, Jimmy (Tone Bell), is hired as her co-anchor without her knowledge or consent. When their dogs form a canine companionship, their owners do likewise.

Happily Ever After

Other interconnected stories involve a flaky dogwalker, a lonely widower who lost his dog, a dog-loving pizza delivery boy, and a withdrawn adopted child who desperately needs a pet. With so many stories, it’s a sure bet that people will fall in love, tempers will flare, good guys will get rewarded, bad guys will get punished, and at least one dog is going to die. As with the other ensemble films that came before it, these stories have only two hours to be resolved and reach the happily ever after endings.

The least funny story may be the most compelling. Eva Longoria and Rob Corddry portray the new parents of an adopted little girl. The child takes no delight in any of the beautiful toys and luxury items they purchased for her. She’s unresponsive to their attempts to nurture, engage, or entertain her, and only finds happiness with the chubby pug that mysteriously enters their life. Longoria delivers a heartfelt performance in which her self-doubt, eagerness to please, and longing to love threaten to overtake her at any given moment. Yet, they don’t, and she remains a strong character who keeps the long-term goal of creating a family as the primary motivation for everything she says and does.

Overall, Dog Days is lighthearted entertainment compared to the big-budget special effects summer blockbusters. It’s a fluffy little poodle among cinematic pit bulls.

Dog Days

Dogs help bring people together in Los Angeles through interconnected comical and dramatic stories.